Доклад про монеты на английском языке​

Before the origin of coins over the centuries, the mission of a means of payment, i.e. money, performed various items of use: shells, slaves, grain, livestock, and more. In the Bronze Age, metal became the monetary equivalent.

With the development of trade and production, ingots of precious metals and copper of various shapes and weights began to play a leading role, having a high value with a relatively small mass. In the second millennium BC. e. in Babylon, merchants, when using ingots or rings of precious metals, guaranteed their weight and metal content with a stigma.

Around 700 BC e. coins appeared in Lydia and the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, which gradually began to supplant weight money. They differed from weight money in that the state itself was engaged in their manufacture. From the coin, money was obtained in the form of a convenient piece of metal, for the content of the noble metal in which the state vouched with an applied image and an inscription. In addition to the economic function, it has given this means of payment and circulation also the function of an information carrier. The emergence of coins became a means of payment for subsistence, and led to the strengthening of the key positions of the state in the economy.

The very first coins appeared in the highly developed culture of ancient China in the middle of the second millennium BC. e. They were made of bronze by casting. In the VII century. BC e. the first minted coins appeared in the Mediterranean countries. Making and minting coins was a relatively simple matter, first the metal was melted and small round discs were cast, these discs were minted.

When the first coins appeared, counterfeits also appeared. So in Ancient Greece, this type of crime became widespread, in the IV century. BC. in Athens, in the laws of Solon, the death penalty was provided for the manufacture of counterfeit coins. Counterfeit coins were a daily occurrence, the people knew the words carved on the wall of the sanctuary of Apollo in Athens: "It is better to counterfeit a coin than the truth."